


Surviving the Games

by still_lycoris



Series: X-Men/Hunger Games Fusion [1]
Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Past Violence, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 01:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6354133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Surviving the games isn't just a matter of winning them, as Hank and Charles know only too well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surviving the Games

Arriving at the Capitol was always where Hank found his courage faltering.

It wasn’t too bad at home. Oh, there were visitors, propos that had to be done, gossip, but mostly, people let him be. They expected nothing from him.

Here, it was different. He could hear the crowd outside, excited for their new tributes – and to see the old.

He could taste the blood on his teeth. Thick, metallic blood. He could smell it on his skin, feel it dripping down his face, his neck …

“I can’t.”

Charles turned to him instantly and reached up a hand. Hank sank onto his knees so they were face to face and let Charles stroke his cheek. Charles always knew the right way to touch him, to ground him in the now and not the then.

“You can,” Charles whispered, voice intense. “You can do this, you know you can.”

“I can’t. Please, Charles, please … ”

“You _can_. Hank, look at me. You can go out there with your head held high. Give them what you feel like giving them. You’re strong and brave and you can do this.”

Hank shook his head, feeling like a child. He couldn’t bear it. Why wouldn’t they just let him run away and hide, let him be something else, someone else? He’d survived the games so why couldn’t he just _live?_

But he knew the answer to that. He didn’t need Charles to tell him. He closed his eyes for a moment and felt Charles stroke his cheek again. His fingers were very soft

“Courage,” Charles said softly. “Don’t make me go out there alone. And think of the children.”

Ah yes, the two things he could never deny. Charles’s need and the needs of the frightened children that were probably going to their deaths in only a few weeks time. He swallowed and got back to his feet. Charles gave him a reassuring smile.

“That’s it. You can do this, Hank. You are stronger and better than they can ever understand.”

Was he? That was what Hank didn’t know if he really believed.

The sound engulfed them in a roar when they left the train. Hank kept his eyes straight ahead, trying not to hear it, trying not to hear them screaming “Beast! Beast! Beast!”

They thought it was a good nickname. They thought it was something to be _proud_ of, what he’d done. When his name had first been called, he’d been immediately dismissed as a contender. A skinny, weak, gawky thing like him? He was nothing special. He’d done nothing impressive in training, barely shone in his interview. Hank McCoy was a nobody who would go to his death and there had been nobody who had thought it more than Hank himself.

And yet somehow, it hadn’t happened that way. 

Hank tried not to remember. He tried so hard not to remember. Sometimes, he could almost forget the living nightmare of running for his life, hiding, hurting. The terror and rage that had filled him in almost equal measure. The violence that had eventually followed because it was better than feeling.

The blood all over him.

He could taste it on his teeth again. He hoped he wouldn’t be sick. That would hardly look good and Charles was right, they needed to look good for the sake of their new tributes. His persona, his hated, hated lie was what gave them power. He had to keep that going. He had to be strong when people could see him. They called him Beast and they loved him for that violence in his nature. They didn’t want to know that he was never happier than when he was curled up with a book somewhere quiet. They wanted to imagine him as a violent warrior, a man with a monster that was barely kept in check. They wanted him to frown and even snarl, be cold and aloof and dark because he was their Beast and who wanted a Beast who just wanted to read a book?

They were inside at last and Charles gave a soft sigh and put his head in his hands. Hank crouched down beside him again, touched his cheek. When he was outside, he never seemed able to hear people calling Charles’s nickname too. Never felt aware of Charles’s own demons until they were hidden out of prying eyes.

He had won his games with a burst of frightened brutality. Charles had won his with a slow, calculated genius that had earned him the nickname of “Professor”, cost him the use of his legs and left him with a deep, bitter self-loathing that Hank didn’t think even his own could rival.

“You acted on instinct,” Charles had told him once, his face bleak as he’d looked at nothing in the dark. “I planned my survival, did everything I could to ensure it. And I succeeded.”

Survival. It always came down to that. After they survived the games, they had to survive life. It was almost harder, in Hank’s opinion. To get up every day and face the world. To put on a mask whenever he had to, pretend to be someone that he’d only been on the worst days of his life.

He supposed it wasn’t all bad. People were willing to let him read, when he was alone. And he had Charles. Charles understood. Charles knew what it was to live with this. To live with the glorification of your worst and the rejection of your best. They looked after each other, sometimes clumsily but they did. Charles helped him get through the day and Hank helped Charles through the night.

“It’s all right,” he said, just as Charles had said to him so many times. “We’re all right now.”

They weren’t, of course. They never would be. But they were surviving. And really, that was all they could do.


End file.
